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Despite the flaming torches of the plebeian plotters which, in the Prologue, etched chiaroscuro omens within the Palladian porticos of Michael Yeargan’s imposing and impressive set, this was a rather slow-burn revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s 1991 production of Simon Boccanegra.

What a treat the London Music Conservatoires serve up for opera-goers each season. After the Royal Academy’s Bizet double-bill of Le docteur Miracle and La tragédie de Carmen, and in advance of the Royal College’s forthcoming pairing of Huw Watkins’ new opera, In the Locked Room, based on a short story by Thomas Hardy, and The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama have delivered a culinary coupling of Paul Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner and Sir Lennox Berkeley’s The Dinner Engagement which the Conservatoire last presented for our delectation in November 2006.

Advertised in the program as the first opera written in the New World,
La Púrpura de la Rosa (PR) was premiered in 1701 in Lima
(Peru), but more than the historical feat, true or not, accounts for the
piece’s interest.

“German poet, dramatist and novelist. One of the most important literary and cultural figures of his age, he was recognized during his lifetime for his accomplishments of almost universal breadth. However, it is his literary works that have most consistently sustained his reputation, and that also serve to demonstrate most clearly his many-faceted relationship to music. . . .

Music composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Libretto by Philippe Quinault after Euripides.

First Performance: 19 January 1674, Opéra, Paris.

Principal Characters:

Nymph of the Seine

Soprano

La Gloire [Glory]

Soprano

Nymph of the Tuileries

Soprano

Nymph of the Marne

Soprano

Alceste [Alcestis] Princess of Iolcos

Soprano

Admète [Admetus] King of Thessaly

Haute-Contre

Alcide [Alcides, or Hercules]

Baritone

Licomède [Lycomedes] brother of Thetis, King of Scyros

Bass

Lychas confidant of Hercules

Haute-Contre

Straton confidant of Lycomedes

Bass

Céphise confidante of Alcestis

Soprano

Cléante knight of Admetus

Tenor

Pherès [Pheres] father of Admetus

Tenor

Charon

Baritone

Pluton [Pluto]

Bass

Thétis [Thetis] a sea-nymph

Soprano

Apollon [Apollo]

Haute-Contre

Proserpine [Proserpina]

Soprano

The Ghost of Alcestis

Silent Role

Alecton [Alecto] a Fury

Haute-Contre

A Rebuffed Ghost

Soprano

Eole [Aeolus] King of the winds

Baritone

Diane [Diana]

Soprano

Setting: The city of Iolcos in Thessaly

Synopsis of The Alcestis

The Alcestis was produced in 438 B.C. and is probably the
earliest of nineteen surviving plays of Euripides, unless the Rhesus
is considered genuine. It was the fourth play in the tetralogy which included
The Cretan Woman, Alcmaeon in Psophis, and
Telephus. It is a position, in all other cases that are known, to be
occupied by a satyr play. However, a true satyr play, such as Cyclops, is a
short, slapstick piece characterized by a chorus of satyrs, half men, half
beasts, who act as a farcical backdrop to the traditional mythological heroes
of tragedy. The Alcestis in spite of its position “is clearly no
such play.”1

It has no satyrs, no openly farcical elements. Even the merriment of
Heracles is toned down to fit the dignity of serious drama. The uniqueness of
the Alcestis is not its happy ending, which was not uncommon in
Greek tragedy, but its positioning within the 438 B.C. tetralogy. Its
relative shortness and fairy-tale like theme which is unusual in extant Greek
tragedy adds to its uniqueness and controversy.

Eurpides’ Alcestis has always been a critic’s battlefield.
Even the genre to which the play belongs is disputed—is it a tragedy,
play, or the first example of a tragicocomedy?2

Though the story of the Alcestis appears relatively simple it too
has been the object of study and controversy. It is the story of a young man
who is king. His name is Admetus. Through the trickery of his friend, the god
Apollo, Admetus escapes Thanatos, Death. Apollo, in the prologue of the
Alcestis, laments the situation he has gotten his friend into. He
had persuaded Death to take a substitute for Admetus. It seemed a fine idea
to both Admetus and Apollo, however Death made one stipulation, the
substitute had to be a voluntary one. Admetus, still undisturbed, believed
his elderly parents would lovingly and willingly take his place and die.
Instead, his parents made it clear, especially Pheres, his father, that life
was sweeter and more precious as one got older and his parents had no
intention of dying for him.

None, except his young beautiful wife and queen came forth. Alcestis
voluntarily places herself in her husband’s stead. Death comes for
Alcestis, leaving her grieving husband to contemplate a life of shame,
promised celibacy and isolation. Now enters Heracles. Heracles sees his
friend in mourning and questions him as to who has died. Admetus assures his
friend that it was simply an outsider and that Heracles was very welcome to
stay. Heracles takes Admetus at his word and begins to party and make merry
as was his custom. Finally, a servant tells Heracles that is is the queen,
Alcestis, that has died. Heracles, angry and hurt confronts Admetus and
learns that this is true. He asks Admetus how he could deceive a friend in
such an embarrassing and cruel way.

Admetus painfully tells Heracles the story. He tells Heracles that he is
sorry for his humiliation but that he did not want to refuse Heracles
hospitality since he felt that hospitality was the only thing left that he
had to give his friend. Heracles not only forgives his friend but feels his
pain in the loss of Alcestis.

Heracles, being the super-hero of those times, goes off to Hades and
wrestles Death for the life of Alcestis. He wins and brings Alcestis back to
Admetus in disguise. It is as if Alcestis is still dead. It is not until
Admetus begins to understand the true pain of his deeds, that the veil drops
from Alcestis’ face and her husband recognizes her. And so the happy
ending.

As its genre, the story also poses questions:

Who is the main character, Alcestis or Admetus? And through whose eyes are
we to see this wife and this husband? Is Alcestis as noble as she says she
is? And is Admetus worthy of her devotion, or does he deserve all the blame
his father, Pheres heaps upon him? And is the salvation of Alcestis a true
mystery, a sardonic ‘and so they lived happily ever after’ or simply
the convenient end of an entertainment?3